Summary
Oral lichen planus (OLP) is an inflammatory mucocutaneous disease, more common in females. Its etiology is not yet well defined; this condition may be related, for example, to anxiety, stress, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, infections and genetic predisposition. The OLP manifests itself in two main forms: reticular and erosive. This work aims to perform a retrospective study analyzing the possible malignant potential of OLP. Records of the patients were analyzed in two projects of oral lesions in two different institutions in the period from 1995 to 2014. Data as gender, age, presence of systemic disease, presence of skin lesions, smoking, duration of the injury, location, symptoms, treatment, follow-up time and malignant transformation were collected. The results showed that, of the 3488 analyzed, 85 (2.4%) had a confirmed diagnosis of OLP, which mainly affected female patients (85%) being the most common the reticular LP. Regarding the malignant transformation of OLP, one patient (0.85%) had squamous cell carcinoma 4 years after the initial diagnosis of OLP. In addition, 3 patients showed moderate cellular atypia. The results reinforce the potential of malignant transformation of OLP. Although this association is speculative, this possibility must be considered by the dental practitioners, who must submit these patients to long periods of monitoring.
KEY WORDS: lichen planus, diagnosis, oral cancer.
How to cite this article
TOMAZ, A.; JACOMACCI, W. P.; QUINTO, J. H. S.; VELTRINI, V. C.; IWAKI, L. C. V. & TOLENTINO, E. S. Potential malignant transformation of oral lichen planus: Retrospective study. Int. J. Odontostomat., 9(3):511-517, 2015.
